President and PM of Finland released a united declaration that Finland in their opinion should join NATO. While this has no technical meaning, it effectively makes it official that we're doing this. Public support for joining recently also hit a record 75%. The parliamentary votes needed will be there. NATO'S support for the idea is confirmed, and some preparatory agreements are already signed.
The rest is pretty much bureaucracy. Sweden expected to follow very soon.
You can tell there was a lot of emotion in the statement.
Kind of OT, but I watched an interview with Alexander Stubb, a former PM of Finland discussing the topic of "Finlandization" as it would relate to a potential peace deal between Russia and Ukraine. The concept in Finland was to be proactive in not antagonizing Russia by actually legislating it. From what I understand, Finland had laws and rules about what could be published or publicly stated about Russia, and to promote a foreign policy that kept Russia happy. The former PM absolutely did not promote this idea.
I found it interesting that Finland at one time accepted restrictions on freedom in exchange for security. I don't blame them and understand why they felt it was necessary, but interesting because today, Finland leads many categories that measure freedom, including freedom of the media (which I think ranks 1st in the world). When I think of Finland, I have the impression of a country that is fiercely independent. Not an aggressive country, but definitely always prepared.
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Last edited by FlamesAddiction; 05-12-2022 at 01:00 PM.
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They must really, really want to encircle Sievierodonetsk to waste so many resources. Though unfortunately they did eventually manage to get across the river. Between that and Popansa falling to the Russians, and they might actually be able to accomplish that. But it's still such a tiny amount of land all things considered:
Russians also recently captured Rubizhne too, so I imagine they will try to push into Sievierodonetsk soon even if it costs them thousands of troops.
Lots going on with my in-laws situation up near the border north of Kharkiv.
Spoiler!
They have been trapped there since pretty much the war started, and the past few weeks have had some quiet days and some rough days. With the counter offensive attempting to push the RU soldiers back to the border, their village has experienced much more fighting recently. Russia definitely isn't giving up their village easy. One of the few good things is that since they are more on the outskirts, it hasn't physically been around them. But still makes it very stressful for them knowing that a street or 2 over this is all happening.
I won't give away too many details of things my wife has been made aware of from some of the locals on the Telegram channel, but the Russians are doing some ####ed up stuff. The Russians there have turned quite pissy and have threatened to murder anyone caught outside using their phones. This makes it very difficult to contact them and outright dangerous to even attempt. My wife hasn't talked to her Mother in over a week, but we do know her and her companions are still alive. Recently a sniper(s) set up camp in their village and was shooting at random civilians. Such a ####ing brave Russian soldier to be shooting at people in their own village, right? There was a bit on the news recently about ~11 snipers were caught in Kharkiv Oblast. We're not sure if the one sniper in their village was one of them, as we haven't heard of any incidents since.
My wife was made aware of a sad incident this morning. She had a friend who died a couple years ago and knew his family quite well. His family attempted to leave today in their car, only to supposedly drive over a mine. An innocent family of 5 was all killed. The entire roadway back to Kharkiv has been mined alongside the road, making it incredibly dangerous to even attempt to go towards Kharkiv. More brave acts by these brave Russian soldiers. I hope they choke on the medals they receive.
Basically in our situation, it comes down to this big offensive working out, the Russians getting pushed back, and our family being able to finally leave. We don't know how this will work out or when this will be possible. But this is finally the big breakthrough we have been banking on the past few months. My wife and I moved back to Canada a couple days ago, and it's hard enough for her to get used to moving to a new country across the world. Even harder knowing what her family is going through and the lack of communication with them. We just hope and pray this all works out.
Obligatory #### you Putin.
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Finlands application to NATO basically means Putin lost the war.
His whole premise for the invasion was to protect Russia from NATO expansion, and now NATO has expanded.
There’s no way even he can spin this in his own country. I’m hopeful the end is near for him and he’s torn apart by factions within Russian bureaucracy. Literally. Like to pieces in Red Square as Lenin watches.
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Russia is demanding an apology! Feelings hurt in Poland. How could Poland do this??!?!!!!?
“Russia expects an official apology from the Polish leadership in connection with the incident and demands the safety of the Russian ambassador and all employees of Russian foreign institutions in Poland are ensured,” the Russian foreign ministry said on Wednesday.
There is a very high likelihood all of this is going to end in nuclear war. Far too high for my liking that’s for sure. Accepting Finland is extremely dangerous IMO.
How can you say there is a very high likelihood? What do you base this on?
The Cuban Missile Crisis was "high likelihood". This isn't.
Russia isn't going to launch nukes indiscriminately at major Western cities because Finland joins NATO.
I think that Putin is the kind of sociopath and psychopath that he doesn't fear using them and I think that he is getting boxed into a corner. You are using logic and reasoning lead you to the rationale outcome that nuclear war is a no-win scenario for Putin and the Russians. But the Russians don't think like westerners and the more active Europe gets in deliberately showing up Putin and not giving him a way out, only lends itself more and more to the inevitable conclusion that hey, maybe the world just isn't worth living in for anybody anyway.
When you box and corner in somebody like Putin, I think you are playing with fire when they are sabre rattling every week about launching nukes because eventually? Eventually he'll just have to show you to be taken seriously.
Sometimes people don't like to think scary things are possible because they don't want to believe scary things are possible and will rationalize themselves into every possible "logical" outcome as to why something won't happen. This is a well known phenomenon and a similar example would be where I said 2 years ago the US is going to obviously head into a civil war on current trajectory, everybody laughed at me then the Capital Riots happened. All that's left for that one now is Trump to win the next election (looking promising there) and then he will never leave office because the Republican party has abandoned democracy and boom, there ya go.
These things happen and just because it hasn't happened in our lifetime doesn't mean these types of mass conflict events can't happen. People today like to think they're enlightened or above human nature when they're the same ####ing group of idiots as they used to be, just with more dangerous weapons.
I think that Putin is the kind of sociopath and psychopath that he doesn't fear using them and I think that he is getting boxed into a corner. You are using logic and reasoning lead you to the rationale outcome that nuclear war is a no-win scenario for Putin and the Russians. But the Russians don't think like westerners and the more active Europe gets in deliberately showing up Putin and not giving him a way out, only lends itself more and more to the inevitable conclusion that hey, maybe the world just isn't worth living in for anybody anyway.
When you box and corner in somebody like Putin, I think you are playing with fire when they are sabre rattling every week about launching nukes because eventually? Eventually he'll just have to show you to be taken seriously.
Sometimes people don't like to think scary things are possible because they don't want to believe scary things are possible and will rationalize themselves into every possible "logical" outcome as to why something won't happen. This is a well known phenomenon and a similar example would be where I said 2 years ago the US is going to obviously head into a civil war on current trajectory, everybody laughed at me then the Capital Riots happened. All that's left for that one now is Trump to win the next election (looking promising there) and then he will never leave office because the Republican party has abandoned democracy and boom, there ya go.
These things happen and just because it hasn't happened in our lifetime doesn't mean these types of mass conflict events can't happen. People today like to think they're enlightened or above human nature when they're the same ####ing group of idiots as they used to be, just with more dangerous weapons.
I think there is a real chance that if he ever actually called for that he might be overthrown. The oligarchs that call the shots and keep him in power do not want nuclear war. Ever.
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I think there is a real chance that if he ever actually called for that he might be overthrown. The oligarchs that call the shots and keep him in power do not want nuclear war. Ever.
What are you basing that on?
Nobody knows how much the Kremlin does or does not support Putin, or even if anybody has the ability to "overthrow" him. Sure doesn't seem like the will is there as of yet. It's pretty terrifying and I think it is a huge mistake by NATO to let any other members in, especially countries bordering Russia. All you are doing is feeding this irrational paranoia and serving justification to Putin to frame such moves as "western aggression" and parlaying into his story about Russians needing to fear "the west". It's them against the world now, right? Only one way out. Stupid of NATO.
I dont believe Putin has the power over nukes that we fear. I believe if he made the order, it’s more likely he’d be removed from his position than those nukes firing.
Nobody knows how much the Kremlin does or does not support Putin, or even if anybody has the ability to "overthrow" him. Sure doesn't seem like the will is there as of yet. It's pretty terrifying and I think it is a huge mistake by NATO to let any other members in, especially countries bordering Russia. All you are doing is feeding this irrational paranoia and serving justification to Putin to frame such moves as "western aggression" and parlaying into his story about Russians needing to fear "the west". It's them against the world now, right? Only one way out. Stupid of NATO.
Should the US kick Estonia, Latvia, and Lithuania to appease him so that NATO doesn’t have any countries that boarder Russia. What about Poland and Turkey just to increase that bigger distance? Appeasement doesn’t work. Actions have consequences for Nuclear powers too. Otherwise you are saying that Russia can invade and all NATO will do is fight proxy wars which just leads to proxy wars and more escalation.
The only acceptable way to play nuclear game theory is to never back down. As soon as a nuclear power knows that you will back down when challenged you have lost. Leave Putin outs, but a changed map and a unified Europe are a natural consequence Putin’s aggression.
And if that results in nuking the world then I would argue that no course of action could have prevented him from nuking the world. Because of a person is willing to destroy all life on earth for some perceived threat that person will find a reason to destroy all life on earth
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I think that Putin is the kind of sociopath and psychopath that he doesn't fear using them and I think that he is getting boxed into a corner. You are using logic and reasoning lead you to the rationale outcome that nuclear war is a no-win scenario for Putin and the Russians. But the Russians don't think like westerners and the more active Europe gets in deliberately showing up Putin and not giving him a way out, only lends itself more and more to the inevitable conclusion that hey, maybe the world just isn't worth living in for anybody anyway.
When you box and corner in somebody like Putin, I think you are playing with fire when they are sabre rattling every week about launching nukes because eventually? Eventually he'll just have to show you to be taken seriously.
Sometimes people don't like to think scary things are possible because they don't want to believe scary things are possible and will rationalize themselves into every possible "logical" outcome as to why something won't happen. This is a well known phenomenon and a similar example would be where I said 2 years ago the US is going to obviously head into a civil war on current trajectory, everybody laughed at me then the Capital Riots happened. All that's left for that one now is Trump to win the next election (looking promising there) and then he will never leave office because the Republican party has abandoned democracy and boom, there ya go.
These things happen and just because it hasn't happened in our lifetime doesn't mean these types of mass conflict events can't happen. People today like to think they're enlightened or above human nature when they're the same ####ing group of idiots as they used to be, just with more dangerous weapons.
I’ve made several posts about nuclear winter in this thread. I certainly don’t shy away from the idea and I understand what it entails.
Russia is a rogue state, but they aren’t a lawless society. Putin can’t just throw a hissy fit and launch nukes on Washington, Berlin, Paris and London. Criteria needs to be met (I.e.: immediate threat to the survival of the State, threat to the head of state, threat to nuclear infrastructure, etc) then and only then do the launch protocols happen. It’s not a one man operation.
And the people at the controls are well aware that if they launch, they die and everyone else dies in retaliatory strikes. They blind loyalty to the mad man likely wavers in those situations.
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The river crossing debacle is something that is simply just unfathomable to think of how utterly stupid Russian military command is.
"Cross the river"
"Bunch up together and make a chokepoint"
"Keep going"
"Bridge destroyed? Your commanding officer has made an order! Cross the river or be shot of treason"
They do everything without proper support and every order is linear. The VDV which was their elite troops were slaughtered like cattle after being dropped in behind enemy lines with zero support early in the war
That they are still trying an offense with clearly no means of being able to sustain such an offense anymore is mind boggling.
There isn't even a battle comparable in WWII to the utter incompetence of Russia. Can't even rank the battle of Cannae from the Punic Wars as incompetence of this magnitude, Russians are basically lemmings. I mean god, this level of utter historical incompetence will be talked about centuries from now.
You should listen to the "Ghosts of the Ostfront" Hardcore History series from Dan Carlin. Some of the descriptions of how the Soviet military operated is strikingly similar.
There's one anecdote in particular that reminds me of this river crossing. A commanding officer decided a river needed to be crossed and gave the order to a subordinate. The subordinate looked at the situation: the river was high and fast, they had inadequate supplies, the soldiers couldn't swim. Rather than tell the commanding officer it couldn't be done, the subordinate ordered the men to cross the river, all were lost. The subordinate returned to the commanding officer and reported the attempt was made, but all were lost to enemy resistance.
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There's one anecdote in particular that reminds me of this river crossing. A commanding officer decided a river needed to be crossed and gave the order to a subordinate. The subordinate looked at the situation: the river was high and fast, they had inadequate supplies, the soldiers couldn't swim. Rather than tell the commanding officer it couldn't be done, the subordinate ordered the men to cross the river, all were lost. The subordinate returned to the commanding officer and reported the attempt was made, but all were lost to enemy resistance.
You can tell there was a lot of emotion in the statement.
Kind of OT, but I watched an interview with Alexander Stubb, a former PM of Finland discussing the topic of "Finlandization" as it would relate to a potential peace deal between Russia and Ukraine. The concept in Finland was to be proactive in not antagonizing Russia by actually legislating it. From what I understand, Finland had laws and rules about what could be published or publicly stated about Russia, and to promote a foreign policy that kept Russia happy. The former PM absolutely did not promote this idea.
I found it interesting that Finland at one time accepted restrictions on freedom in exchange for security. I don't blame them and understand why they felt it was necessary, but interesting because today, Finland leads many categories that measure freedom, including freedom of the media (which I think ranks 1st in the world). When I think of Finland, I have the impression of a country that is fiercely independent. Not an aggressive country, but definitely always prepared.
Those things are mostly inaccurate, but there's a LOT of misinformation about that era around, even in Finland.
The myth of finlandization as it's discussed today is mostly an ahistorical pummeling tool certain people on the right direct at the left.
Actual finlandization was a lot more about the right and center deciding that Finlands commercial interests with Soviet Union were more important than anything else. Security was a part of it of course,, but if trade with Soviet Union hadn't become a massive source of wealth for Finland, Finlandization likely never happens.
As for how it worked, again it was mostly just about people in power, from politicians to businessmen to news editors etc, kind of all agreeing that talking smack about Soviet Union is a bad idea, and each enforcing that through their own means, rather than specific laws. It's something that can happen quite easily in a small country, as the people in power all know each other.
The extent to which criticism of Soviet Union was prohibited is also massively exaggerated. It was certainly a thing, but you could absolutely get books or articles or songs published on that topic for example. You could of course get a lot of public #### if you did it, or even worse be ignored to death, which obviously created a chilling effect. But it's not hard at all to find anti-soviet talk from that era.
Not that there wasn't plenty of genuinely pro-soviet thinking on the left, but that didn't really change during this period from what it was before, it was the center and right changing their stance that really created this era. SInce for the the right Finlandization wasn't ideological but purely practical, paradoxically criticizing the Soviet Union became mostly a leftist thing, as it was very much part of leftist infighting. (For an example, the two then-major left wing parties condemned Prague Spring 1968 quite strictly, while no other party said anything.)
Finlandization wasn't caused by any one factor, but rather there was a period where most people regardless of their political leanings kind of all agreed that we shouldn't talk smack about the Soviet Union, all for their own reasons. Some of it was security, some of it was ideology, but a lot of it was money.
Soviet Union wasn't just a huge trading partner for Finland, it was also an extremely profitable one, because Finland was one of the very few countries in the world that could pretty freely trade with both the Soviet bloc and the Nato bloc. That special trade position is a key reason why Finland very rapidly went from a poor mostly agricultural country to a rich industrialized country during the Cold War era.
As I like to put it, it's easy to get righteous about it now, but Finlandization worked out extremely well for us in retrospect.
Last edited by Itse; 05-13-2022 at 02:38 AM.
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I think that Putin is the kind of sociopath and psychopath that he doesn't fear using them and I think that he is getting boxed into a corner. You are using logic and reasoning lead you to the rationale outcome that nuclear war is a no-win scenario for Putin and the Russians. But the Russians don't think like westerners and the more active Europe gets in deliberately showing up Putin and not giving him a way out, only lends itself more and more to the inevitable conclusion that hey, maybe the world just isn't worth living in for anybody anyway.
When you box and corner in somebody like Putin, I think you are playing with fire when they are sabre rattling every week about launching nukes because eventually? Eventually he'll just have to show you to be taken seriously.
Sometimes people don't like to think scary things are possible because they don't want to believe scary things are possible and will rationalize themselves into every possible "logical" outcome as to why something won't happen. This is a well known phenomenon and a similar example would be where I said 2 years ago the US is going to obviously head into a civil war on current trajectory, everybody laughed at me then the Capital Riots happened. All that's left for that one now is Trump to win the next election (looking promising there) and then he will never leave office because the Republican party has abandoned democracy and boom, there ya go.
These things happen and just because it hasn't happened in our lifetime doesn't mean these types of mass conflict events can't happen. People today like to think they're enlightened or above human nature when they're the same ####ing group of idiots as they used to be, just with more dangerous weapons.
Assuming Putin is some crazy guy just means he can do whatever he wants because you can't poke the bear. It benefits Russia. If they aren't rational and are willing to destroy everyone in their country over Finland joining NATO then they will find some other reason to do it if Finland doesn't join NATO.
